O'Reilly has been trashing NBC news lately because he's mad at Olbermann and doesn't want to say his name on the air. How does Billy get back at Keith? He says everybody hates George on NBC. I know, it's stupid. Couldn't O'Reilly think of something a little bit more---I don't know---clever? Yea, yea, I know. It's O'Reilly. Anyway, Joe is sick of O'Reilly lying about NBC and calls him out.

Mike Barnicle took apart another apologist named Bob Kohn, who was trying to defend O'Reilly---(he's a frequent guest on The Factor) before Scarborough issued the challenge. O'Reilly calls everybody cowards that refuse to appear on his show. What say you Bill? Care to take him up? Of course not.

Scarborough: And I challenge you to debate me anytime, anyplace, anywhere, and find one thing I have said on this program over the past year that is not consistent with the conservative congressman who was against military adventurism when I was in Congress, that was against exploding deficits, that was against reckless spending and against turning Congress into the type of swamp that we Republicans have turned it into over the past six years!

That doesn‘t make me liberal, that makes me conservative! That may make you, though, a suck-up, if you defend the Republicans that have done that to this country and to our party over the past six years! (full transcript below the fold)

MIKE BARNICLE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Hey, Joe, I‘ll use the word “everybody,” as Bill did on his program, as in everybody has the right to have a couple of bad days and make a few mistakes in their life. And Bill made a couple of mistakes here in his broad indictment of NBC News and right there of David Gregory.

The larger issue involved here that you were speaking with Bob about earlier with regard to Richard Engel—Richard Engel needs no defense or lectures on journalism from anyone. Richard Engel is doing a terrific job at covering a very difficult war to cover. And by labeling what happened with the Saddam Hussein execution as a public relations disaster is not opinion, it‘s fact-based.

KOHN: Oh, come on!

BARNICLE: It‘s fact-based. And every...

SCARBOROUGH: You don‘t know the difference between opinion and fact!

Oh, come on!

BARNICLE: And every—OK, you tell me why it wasn‘t a public relations disaster, Bob.

KOHN: Well, we can debate it, OK? I don‘t think that‘s the issue.

BARNICLE: No, no. No debate. No debate.

KOHN: I don‘t think...

BARNICLE: You tell me why it wasn‘t a public relations disaster.

KOHN: I don‘t think it was.

BARNICLE: You accused Richard Engel—you accused Richard Engel...

KOHN: I don‘t think it was a public relations—OK...

BARNICLE: ... of injecting opinion into a news report. Tell me why it was not a public relations disaster.

KOHN: Let‘s talk about this. Historically, OK, people are going to remember what Saddam did in his life, how many hundreds of thousands of people he killed, not how he died, OK?

BARNICLE: No, no. Let‘s talk about...

KOHN: That‘s not going to be the issue.

BARNICLE: Let‘s talk about you maligning Richard Engel.

KOHN: OK, I‘m maligning Richard Engel because he‘s inserting his opinion in a straight news story. “The New York Times”...

BARNICLE: Tell me what...

KOHN: ... does it all the time.

BARNICLE: ... opinion...

KOHN: That‘s a problem.

BARNICLE: Tell me what opinion he inserted. You are alleging that the Saddam Hussein execution, the way it was carried out, was not a public relations disaster?

KOHN: All Richard Engel...

BARNICLE: That‘s what you‘re alleging?

KOHN: All Richard Engel had to do was say that somebody else said.

He could have quoted people. He could have asked people what they said. But because he says it and because “The New York Times” says it and other people start repeating it, it becomes a public relations disaster.

I actually think it‘s the opposite. I think it was a brilliant thing that happened. As a matter of fact, it was the best thing that...

BARNICLE: You do?

KOHN: ... could have happened for Iraq—absolutely—because what the president of Iraq was trying to do was to show, in telling Bush, No, I‘m not going to delay the execution, I‘m going to do it now, he was...

BARNICLE: How old are you, Bob?

KOHN: No, don‘t start...

BARNICLE: How old are you, Bob?

KOHN: Don‘t start the ad hominem attacks.

BARNICLE: Let me tell you...

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: Let me give you my argument, OK? Let me finish what I‘m having to say. Because the president of Iraq wanted to demonstrate to the world that he is his own man. You may not agree with that, but he‘s trying to have his own public relations expression to the world that, I‘m going to make this decision.

BARNICLE: All right...

KOHN: Now, he made it.

BARNICLE: ... here‘s the reality...

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: I don‘t think it was a disaster! I think this was good for history...

BARNICLE: Bob, here‘s...

(CROSSTALK)

BARNICLE: Stop the shouting. Here‘s the reality of it. The way he died made Saddam a folk hero among savages whose only intent is to kill Americans. So more Iraqis are going to have more resolve to try and kill more Americans because of the way Saddam Hussein was executed, like it was a chapter in “Deadwood” HBO!

SCARBOROUGH: And I‘ll tell you what. In the end, I guess the thing that made me the most angry about it is not because I‘m a liberal, it‘s because I‘m a conservative. It‘s not because I oppose our troops, it‘s because I support our troops, because I represented our troops for eight years on the Armed Services Committee! The people who are going to be suffering on this aren‘t people at Fox News or MSNBC, they‘re going to be the 19-year-old kids that are going to be touring Sunni neighborhoods, trying to keep things in order, and getting blown up because of the sectarian violence that‘s going to continue ripping apart the country, probably at a more intense pace because of the sloppy way that execution was handled! I think it was a disgrace. I think it was a PR disaster. But that‘s just my opinion.

Bob Kohn, thank you for being with us. Mike Barnicle, thank you for being with us.

Bill O‘Reilly, just attack Rosie. You‘re way off base on MSNBC, on NBC and certainly on me. And I challenge you to debate me anytime, anyplace, anywhere, and find one thing I have said on this program over the past year that is not consistent with the conservative congressman who was against military adventurism when I was in Congress, that was against exploding deficits, that was against reckless spending and against turning Congress into the type of swamp that we Republicans have turned it into over the past six years!

That doesn‘t make me liberal, that makes me conservative! That may make you, though, a suck-up, if you defend the Republicans that have done that to this country and to our party over the past six years!

Repigs talk all the time about going to war all over the world. I always ask, "Who is going to pay for it?" Either they don't answer or they reply that tax cuts will take care of it. Oh, and also ending programs that keep American schoolchildren from starving.